On December 21, Nigeria’s Borno State Commissioner of Health announced the end of the state’s cholera outbreak after more than two weeks with no new recorded cholera cases. Health officials recorded nearly 5,400 suspected and confirmed cholera cases, including 61 related deaths, between mid-August and December 17. Preventive health and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions remain ongoing in affected areas.

Attacks by armed groups in the Lake Chad Basin region remain a significant threat to civilians. In northeastern Nigeria, at least seven alleged Boko Haram attacks in late December and early January resulted in nearly 60 civilian casualties, according to international media. The incidents follow a December 16 attack on a convoy transporting UN World Food Program (WFP) commodities that killed four civilian in Borno. In addition, a person-borne improvised explosive device (PBIED) attack in Cameroon’s Far North Region’s Bia town on December 31 resulted in at least one civilian death.

Recent food security analyses project that food insecurity will continue or worsen across the Lake Chad Basin through mid-2018. The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) anticipates that Niger’s Diffa Region may experience Crisis—IPC 3— levels of acute food insecurity between January and May in the absence of continued humanitarian assistance as a result of ongoing conflict. 4 In addition, FEWS NET reports that poor 2017 main-season harvests in northeastern Nigeria are likely to perpetuate Crisis and Emergency—IPC4—levels of acute food insecurity among many vulnerable households in the region.